


There'll Be A Future Down The Road

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Future Fic, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reconciliation, Reunions, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Spy Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27389290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: Stiles must have made some kind of noise, because the woman’s head snaps up.“Oh,” she says. “You’re awake. That’s a good sign. Try to stay that way this time, will you?” She turns back over her shoulder and calls out, “Derek! He’s conscious!”The loudness of it makes Stiles’ head throb so hard that he almost doesn’t comprehend what she said. It isn’t until Derek is right there, in the room, leaning over him with that same concerned scowl, that Stiles realizes he wasn’t dreaming earlier.“Derek,” Stiles croaks. “What are you doing here?”The scowl deepens. “You break into my house after four years of nothing, collapse on my floor covered in blood, and then have the gall to ask me whatI’mdoing here?”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 60
Kudos: 1058
Collections: Sterek Reverse Quickie 2020





	There'll Be A Future Down The Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwistedAmusement13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedAmusement13/gifts).
  * Inspired by [ART - Hitman Stiles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27389179) by [TwistedAmusement13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedAmusement13/pseuds/TwistedAmusement13). 



> what a great concept and lovely moodboard to work with!!! thanks to Twisted for providing, and for being patient with my last minute panic, lol. hope you like it! <3

This might be bad.

Not that Stiles hasn’t been injured on the job before—his job is, in point of fact, _extremely_ dangerous, and he’s taken his fair share of hits in the last few years—but he’s usually had a partner or a handler within range. The last time he was shot, he was able to hold out long enough to pass the buck to Diane and then collapse into an unmarked van and let Agent Twain drive him to the nearest safe house for medical intervention.

There’s no Agent Twain today. No Diane either. Just Stiles, with instructions to follow, a high priority mark, and a warning that he’s on his own if things go south. Considering the amount of blood he’s lost so far and just how woozy he’s getting, Stiles can say with confidence that they did. His sleeve is soaked through, blood dripping from his fingertips to leave a really obvious trail on the sidewalk behind him. If the world wasn’t tilting so aggressively on its axis, he might try to do something about that. At the moment, though, walking in a straight line is hard enough and his stomach threatens to revolt with every step.

God, concussions are a bitch.

He’s got the information, though. The little jump drive is tucked into an inside pocket of his jacket, waiting for delivery back to the US government, who will make use of it however they will. Stiles wasn’t given the details. He rarely is. His job is to follow orders, not ask questions.

He hopes the jump drive will still work if he bleeds on it.

Stiles collapses against a lamppost, the cool metal soothing against his flushed cheek. He doesn’t let himself close his eyes. He breathes as deeply as he can manage through the ache in his ribs and the burn in his shoulder and casts his sluggish mind outward.

He doesn’t use his spark for much on the job. As far as he’s been able to determine, the CIA doesn’t know about magic or werewolves or anything supernatural, and he is _not_ going to be the one to clue them in because he would rather not end up on a slab in some laboratory somewhere. But the one thing he really goes in for is warding. He does not skimp on his safehouses.

Stiles searches for that warm, bright spot in his mind’s eye _._ He’s not quite sure where he is, honestly, but he made sure that there were at least two safehouses within a reasonable distance from this mission’s endgame locale. He doesn’t need a street address when his spark is there to pull him in the right direction.

That direction is west. He can feel the glow of _safesafesafe,_ radiating like a hearthfire, somewhere over there.

Stiles gathers his resolve, shoves himself upright with a grunt, and heads west.

It’s a goddamn miracle that Stiles doesn’t encounter anyone on the street, or maybe it’s just the late hour. Most normal people don’t wander the streets in the wee hours of the morning; Stiles has always been an outlier in that regard, though usually there were extenuating circumstances, like monster-fighting. He may not be fighting literal monsters very often these days, but he maintains that his colorful adolescence uniquely prepared him for his current career path.

This isn’t even the first time he’s struggled through a concussion to get something done, not that that makes it any easier. And, unfortunately, he’s not going to have Scott or Melissa to patch him up at the end of this. He’s going to have to do that himself. If he even makes it there, which isn’t a guarantee, and doesn’t lose consciousness as soon as he does.

He follows the glow, step by agonizing step. He lets it draw him in like a moth to a flame while his thoughts narrow down to pure stubbornness and a refusal to be defeated by some pissant businessman who didn’t even know better than to shoot from the hip. Fucking lucky shot. He wasn’t even _aiming_ for Stiles, and isn’t _that_ some bullshit?

He doesn’t recognize this neighborhood, but, to be fair, the whole point of a safehouse is for it to be inconspicuous and forgettable. Also, everything’s spinning again, and Stiles _knows_ there’s something important he’s supposed to be keeping track of, but fuck if his scrambled brain can remember what that is. All he knows is that safety is in that house right there.

It’s a little two-story brownstone place, sandwiched in a line of identical little two-story brownstone places, and the door is locked when Stiles collapses against it. A staticky burst of magic unlocks it and Stiles falls through into warm darkness that feels _good_ and _right._ He could just lie down right here on the entryway rug and sleep for a year.

But that would be bad. No sleeping with concussions. His brain may be scrambled, but Melissa and his dad both drilled that into him so thoroughly that even a head wound and steady exsanguination can make him forget it.

Oh god, he should really do something about that exsanguinating thing.

There’s a half-bath just off the entryway. It doesn’t have the first-aid kit that Stiles is expecting—he keeps his safehouses fully stocked, thank you very much. Maybe it’s in an upstairs bathroom?—but there’s a roll of gauze, and that’ll have to do. The dressing is messy and haphazard, but he thinks it’ll probably keep him from dying.

His jacket ends up in a sodden lump on the floor. Blood seeps into the cracks between the tiles, spiderwebbing outward, and Stiles sends out a mental apology to whoever’s job it’s going to be to clean that up. Getting blood out of grout is almost as bad as getting blood out of car upholstery. He’s had plenty of experience with both.

Stiles makes it halfway through the living room—oddly cozy for a government safehouse—in search of a phone before his legs give out on him again. The coffee table doesn’t provide nearly as much support as the lamppost did, and the stiff bristles of the carpet aren’t as soothing either. His last thought before blackness overtakes him is that he hopes his blood doesn’t ruin the rug. It’s a really nice rug.

* * *

He dreams for a bit. At least, he assumes it’s a dream. He hasn’t seen Derek outside of dreams for a few years. His Derek dreams are usually nicer than this, though. Less hazy. Significantly less pain involved, too. The glimpses of Derek’s face that he gets now are blurry and concerned, dark eyebrows drawn down into a scowl that would be familiar if it didn’t look so scared. Everything hurts, and that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

Stiles wants his normal dream-Derek back, the one that smiles at him and touches him softly and says his name like it’s something special. This one is yelling, Stiles thinks. It’s hard to tell. Everything is muffled and fading in and out.

He slips back into the black.

* * *

They say that everyone you see in your dreams is someone you’ve seen in real life. Stiles has never been entirely convinced of that, but he’s pretty sure the face above him now is one he’s never seen before, and that makes him think that maybe he’s actually awake this time.

It’s a sweet face, round and freckly with an upturned nose, surrounded by an absolute _riot_ of bright orange curls. The woman’s pink lips are pulled down into a frown and she seems intently focused on something. A sudden stab of pain in Stiles’ shoulder tells him what; he’s very familiar with the feeling of non-anesthetized stitches. His subconscious would not be enough of a dick to subject him to it in his dreams. Definitely awake.

He must have made some kind of noise, because the woman’s head snaps up.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re awake. That’s a good sign. Try to stay that way this time, will you?” She turns back over her shoulder and calls out, “Derek! He’s conscious!”

The loudness of it makes Stiles’ head throb so hard that he almost doesn’t comprehend what she said. It isn’t until Derek is right there, in the room, leaning over him with that same concerned scowl, that Stiles realizes he wasn’t dreaming earlier.

“Derek,” Stiles croaks. “What are you doing here?”

The scowl deepens. “You break into my house after four years of nothing, collapse on my floor covered in blood, and then have the gall to ask me what _I’m_ doing here?”

“Your—?”

Stiles’ attempt at shaking his head is met with two equal waves of nausea and pain. A small hand presses firmly against his chest, holding him down—as if he was going to try getting _up_ after that, jeez—and the redhead comes back into view.

“Stay still,” she says. “You took one hell of a blow to the head. Now that you’re awake, I need to check some things.”

A penlight appears in front of him. Stiles tries to bat it away with the arm that doesn’t have a bullet hole in it, but even his good arm doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with him fully. In the end, her steadier and more functional hand wins out, and he’s forced to allow her to shine the light into both his eyes.

“Pupils are equal and reactive.” She clicks the penlight off. “You’re probably not in imminent danger of dropping dead, but I’d still feel better if I could get you to a hospital for a real MRI and—”

“Nope.” Stiles’ attempt to roll off the couch they’ve put him on goes about as well as the attempt at shaking his head did, but he doesn’t let that stop him. “No can do, lady. Not about that hospital life. In fact, I gotta go.”

He makes it halfway off the couch, one knee landing in all that blood he’d leaked earlier, and tries to lurch to his feet. It’s probably a good thing that Derek grabs him. Everything goes topsy-turvy and dark around the edges, and he doesn’t remember his trip back onto the couch, but he finds himself there nonetheless. Derek looks even angrier now.

“Damn it, Stiles,” he snaps. “Will you just fucking _stop_ for one minute before you hurt yourself even more?”

Stiles swallows down bile, blinks the stars out of his eyes, and says, “I’m fine. Been worse. You _know_ I’ve been worse.”

“You’ve got a concussion and a bullet in your arm, Stiles!”

Stiles grimaces. “Oh god, is it still in there?”

“No,” the redhead cuts in steadily. “I extracted the bullet already, and I’m reasonably confident that there aren’t any fragments.” She puts a hand on Derek’s arm. “Maybe consider that yelling _isn’t_ going to help the situation.”

Derek grits his teeth, a tendon jumping in his neck with how tightly he’s wound, but he doesn’t shout anymore, which Stiles’ headache thanks him for. He crosses his arms tight over his chest instead. The years have done him good; Stiles can practically hear the sleeves of his sweater crying out for help. There are dark splotches on them, all along the forearms. _Blood,_ probably from earlier when he tried to wake Stiles up before, apparently, phoning a friend.

A friend who is still giving Derek a very stern look. Anyone who can keep up a look like that in the face of an angry Derek Hale has got a pretty strong backbone, Stiles will give her that much.

When Derek dares to speak again, it’s at a lower volume, but no less heated.

“What the fuck is going on? What are you doing here?”

Stiles glances around the room, taking in the nice (if blood-stained) rug, the mahogany coffee table covered in magazines, the squishy couch he’s sitting on, the flat-screen TV on the opposite wall. It’s looking less and less like a government safehouse with every passing glance. 

He licks his lips. “Uh...where exactly _is_ ‘here’?”

This does not please Derek.

“It’s my house, Stiles,” he hisses. “The house I’ve lived in for the last three years. Which you would know if you’d bothered to keep in contact.”

Stiles’ stomach lurches for entirely non-concussion related reasons. Derek doesn’t seem to notice. Or, if he does, he’s too angry to care. He opens his mouth again, more loudness obviously incoming, but the redhead doesn’t let him get another word out.

“Why don’t you go make us something to eat, hm?” she says, her eyes on Stiles. “The antibiotics I have shouldn’t be taken on an empty stomach. And I still need to finish stitching the wound.”

The not-so-subtle reminder that Stiles is injured takes some of the wind out of Derek’s sails. His eyes fall to Stiles’ bloody shoulder, then trace over the rest of him.

Stiles hasn’t been body-shy in years, but he finds himself fighting an instinct to curl in on himself. His shirt is, presumably, still in a soggy lump on the bathroom floor. His bare chest is no doubt covered in bruises—he took at least one kick to the ribs before the firearm made an appearance. He can’t help but wonder how different he looks from the last time Derek saw him. Even before he’d had to cut contact, it had been a while.

His whole body hurts, but, honestly, the fact that Derek is gone from the room the next time Stiles raises his eyes from the floor hurts more. He breathes out a sigh of relief anyway.

That feeling lasts about as long as it takes for the redhead to pick up her needle again. She gives him a sympathetic grimace as she re-settles herself at his side, one knee up on the couch as she sets her sights on his wounded shoulder again.

“I’m sorry I don’t have any numbing agent,” she says. “There was only so much I could get away with taking from the hospital without anybody noticing. Since you were unconscious anyway, I prioritized the antibiotics.”

“It’s fine.”

Unconscious was definitely better. Getting stabbed repeatedly and having thread dragged through his abused flesh is never fun. Stiles grits his teeth to keep any embarrassing noises inside where they belong. He wonders if Derek can hear the hitches in his breathing, or if his kitchen is too far away for that. The scent of his blood has probably filled the whole house by now. It’ll take a while to air that out.

Between stitches, Stiles breathes and says, “Do you do that often?”

The redhead glances up at him. “Do what?”

“Steal medical supplies at Derek’s request.”

She stabs him again, as gently as is possible to do so. “Not often, no. It’s not every day that he comes home to find someone bleeding out in his living room.”

With a weak laugh, Stiles says, “No, ‘spose not. Why’d he call you instead of an ambulance or something?”

“You told him not to.”

Stiles frowns.

“You don’t remember?” At his shaken head, she shrugs. “Not surprising. You weren’t really fully conscious. Very adamant about the ‘no hospital’ thing, even then, but definitely not coherent. Derek was really freaked out about it when he called me.”

It’s not easy to freak out Derek Hale, Stiles knows from experience. Very few things in all their years of Beacon Hills crazy had managed that. The thought of Derek, calling for help with his hands covered in Stiles’ blood, frantic enough to be noticeable even over the phone—

Stiles digs his fingers into the couch cushion, grits his teeth through another suture, and asks, “So who are you, anyway? How do you know Derek? Are you his…?”

The redhead’s pink lips pull up into a small smile, though her eyes stay focused on her busy hands. “I’m Rebecca,” she says. “And no, I’m not.”

Stiles’ face goes hot, which is stupid. It was a perfectly legitimate question. As is: “But he trusts you?”

“He wouldn’t have called me if he didn’t.”

Rebecca ties one last careful knot and retrieves a pair of small scissors from the coffee table to snip the ends. The rest of the gauze is there too, some of it already smeared with bloody fingerprints from Stiles’ attempts at bandaging himself up. Rebecca’s wrapping is much neater. She tucks the ends in efficiently, rolls up the excess, and lines all the medical supplies up on the coffee table in a tidy row.

“He talks about you, you know,” she says. “I’ve heard a lot about ‘Stiles from back home’.”

Her tone is unreadable, brown eyes steady on Stiles’ face. That smile small is still there, though, not that it helps any. For all that many of Stiles’ missions rely a good deal on observation and perception, on reading people and predicting their actions or their motives, this particular smile is frustratingly enigmatic. Maybe he can blame it on the concussion.

“I’d ask if it was good or bad,” he says, “but after earlier, I don’t think I need to.”

“He’s angry,” Rebecca allows. “But don’t let that trick you into thinking he doesn’t care. People who don’t care don’t bother with getting angry.”

Before Stiles can process that statement, a china plate with a sandwich on it appears under his nose.

“Eat that,” Derek grunts.

Gingerly, Stiles takes the plate. His stomach doesn’t feel like a very welcoming place for food at the moment—nausea! Always a fun concussion party favor—but the thundercloud that is Derek’s expression doesn’t invite argument. He’s only managed to choke down one bite when Derek claims the unoccupied end of the couch, a wad of black fabric in hand, and reaches for Stiles’ injured arm.

The wad of fabric turns out to be a sweater. With a few clever twists, Derek has got the body of it wrapped around Stiles’ forearm and the sleeves tied around his neck. It makes a serviceable and surprisingly sturdy sling that takes a lot of the pressure off his wounded shoulder.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Stiles asks.

“From Chris,” Derek says stiffly, “when I got shot on a hunting trip in North Carolina last year.”

“You got _shot?_ ”

Stiles has tried to keep tabs on the rest of the pack as best he can through Scott and his dad, though it’s sort of difficult to keep up with things when he’s off the grid so much of the time. If Derek and Chris have been going on hunting—or “hunting”, as the case may be—trips together, Stiles never heard about it, and he definitely never heard about Derek getting shot that badly. There must’ve been wolfsbane involved, if the wound lasted long enough to need a sling.

Derek offers up a tight smile. “Yeah, I did. I would’ve told you, but I don’t have your number anymore.” He jabs a finger at the sandwich. “ _Eat._ ”

Then he’s gone again, leaving Stiles gaping in his wake. Even if he’d had an appetite before, it would be gone now, after that parting shot.

Rebecca nudges his knee.

“You really do need to eat.” She deposits an orange pill bottle on the coffee table and says, “Three times a day, with food.”

Stiles obediently takes a bite, despite the roiling in his gut. It’s a little hard to swallow past the lump in his throat, and he can’t get Derek’s voice out of his head. It’s been so long since he heard it last. He’s missed it—more than he’s ever allowed himself to admit—but this is not how he imagined hearing it again. Over the years, he’s forgotten how much having Derek angry with him _hurts._

“I’ve got to go,” Rebecca sighs. “Unfortunately, I’ve got work in the morning.”

Her smile is wry, and a glance at the clock on the mantelpiece reveals why: it’s already well into the morning hours. Not surprising, considering it was after midnight when Stiles stumbled in here. He couldn’t have been unconscious for too long before Derek found him.

Stiles forces down the last of his sandwich and tries to smile. “Sorry you got dragged out of bed over little ol’ me. Late night crises aren’t fun, I know from experience.”

Rebecca laughs. “Fun, no. But it certainly shakes things up a bit, and there’s something to be said for having a little excitement in your life once in a while.”

With one more knee-nudge, she stands. She hitches a very large purse—useful for storing and transporting stolen medical supplies, no doubt—over her shoulder and turns to look at him.

“You’re not exactly what I expected, Stiles,” she says, thoughtful. “But somehow, at the same time, you sort of are.”

Stiles looks back at her steadily. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”

“I’m not sure.” Her fingers tighten around the strap of her back as she rocks back on her heels, bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Do me a favor,” she says finally.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t hurt him again.”

She doesn’t wait for a response. A moment later, the front door opens and then closes behind her.

“Did Rebecca leave?”

Stiles turns to see Derek in the doorway to the kitchen again, this time with a glass of water in hand. He nods at Stiles’ hoarse “yeah” and delivers the glass into Stiles’ hand. He shakes a pill out of the little orange bottle and holds that out too, the order clear. Stiles tosses it back without protest—he’s _had_ infected wounds before and has no desire to ever have another one. Derek waits until he’s finished and then takes up Stiles’ empty plate, turning back toward the kitchen again.

“Wait, Derek—”

His right hand occupied with the water glass, Stiles unthinkingly reaches out with his left. The sling stops him from jostling it _too_ much, but the motion is still plenty enough to send pain ricocheting through him. It does the job of getting Derek to turn back around, though, and he scowls.

“Jesus, Stiles.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles grits out.

Derek rescues the glass of water, precariously tipping in Stiles’ other hand. “It’s fine. Just be careful, will you? Before you pop your stitches.”

Good hand now available, Stiles latches onto Derek’s sleeve with it. “No, Derek. I mean, I’m _sorry._ ”

Derek freezes. His fingers tighten around the glass in his hand, shoulders suddenly tense. He doesn’t try to pull his sleeve out of Stiles’ hold, though. Stiles wishes he could see Derek’s face, to get some grasp of Derek’s reaction, but his head is turned away and he makes no move to look back. He must be able to hear the pounding of Stiles’ heart loud and clear, at least. Stiles hopes so. Maybe that’ll make it easier for Derek to believe him.

“I didn’t not stay in contact because I didn’t care about you,” Stiles says. “I guess I just… I didn’t think that _you_ would care.”

The tension in Derek’s shoulders ratchets up another notch. Before he can shake Stiles off, Stiles transfers his grip from Derek’s sleeve to his wrist. Derek huffs, sharp and indignant, but, again, he lets himself be held back. That’s got to count for something.

“It’s not that I thought you wouldn’t care at all,” Stiles hastens to say. “It’s just that— When they recruited me, they said that it would be _dangerous_ and that I shouldn’t— And you were in such a good place with the pack, I thought you would be okay without me. I didn’t know that you would be so—”

“Recruited?”

Stiles stutters to a stop. Derek’s looking at him now, his stormy expression replaced with something else. His pulse is steady and strong beneath Stiles’ fingertips and his eyes pin Stiles to the spot like no one else’s ever have. Stiles swallows. He lets go of Derek’s wrist.

Derek doesn’t take the opportunity to flee this time.

“What do you mean, recruited?” he asks again. “Stiles, what the hell have you been doing this whole time? And don’t try and feed me that crap that Scott did about studying abroad, as if they don’t have cell phones in Nepal or Zimbabwe or wherever the fuck he said you were the last time I asked. If nothing else, I’m pretty sure studying abroad doesn’t get you shot.”

A weak laugh escapes before Stiles can stop it. “If I said ‘if I told you, then I’d have to kill you’, would you believe me?”

Derek’s face closes off again like he thinks Stiles is lying and, okay, maybe he’s earned that. The sad thing is, the joke isn’t that far from the truth. There are protocols to follow here, and _none_ of them involve revealing classified information to an unknown party. God, Stiles could probably be shipped off to Guantanamo just for bringing that damn jump drive into an unsecured location, much less revealing himself as a government agent to a civilian.

But this isn’t just any civilian. This is _Derek._ This is a man he’s known for over a decade, someone that he’s fought and almost died alongside. Derek is long hours in the car, bitching about how boring stakeouts are, and turning his back on a monster to push Stiles to safety. Derek is trading old books to cross-reference obscure lore, falling asleep together on the couch in the wee hours of the morning, and waking up alone but tucked in with a blanket from his bedroom upstairs. Derek is soft smiles and dry humor and a glowing warmth in Stiles’ chest that says he never needs to worry when Derek is there with him.

Derek is as far from unknown as it is possible to be.

So Stiles shoves down all the voices in his head shouting about breaches of protocol and says, “You really want to know why I’m here?”

“No, Stiles,” Derek says, eyes rolling. “I _love_ being in the dark. It’s made the last four years _so_ much fun.”

Stiles doesn’t rise to the bait. He pulls his injured arm in tight against his stomach, fighting the instinct again to curl in on himself. Part of him already wants to take back the words he hasn’t said yet, to laugh it off and make up some semi-plausible excuse. The rest of him looks at Derek and wants to spill every secret he’s ever had at the man’s feet. All of him wants to reach out and take hold of Derek’s hand.

Instead, he says, as steadily as he can manage, “I was here, in NYC, to intercept the transmission of certain sensitive information on behalf of the US government. Which I did, and I’ll need to get that back to Langley sometime soon, before the Director assumes I failed my mission and declares a state of emergency or something. But I’m _here_ -here because…”

Stiles casts his eyes fruitlessly around the cozy living room, letting his spark probe every corner of it, just in case. He shakes his head.

“You don’t happen to have any wards on this place, do you?

Derek, apparently too taken aback for words, shakes his head.

“So it really is just you.”

Stiles scrubs his good hand over his face, wincing at the myriad of bruises he discovers there, not to mention two stitches above his left eyebrow that he’d missed somehow. He lets the hand fall into his lap and meets Derek’s wide, uncertain eyes.

“I was looking for a safehouse,” he admits. “One of the safehouses I set up with my own brand of magical protections that even the CIA doesn’t know about. I don’t know the addresses for them. I don’t _need_ to, because my spark just leads me to where I know I’ll be safe.”

Derek’s throat works around a swallow. “Then how did you end up here?”

A helpless smile tugs at Stiles’ lips. “Derek, I’ve always known that I was safe with you.”

A pink flush spreads across Derek’s face. He ducks his head, feet shifting. His mouth opens, but no words come out.

Finally, he manages to say, “I need to—” He gestures with the plate and glass still clutched in his hands.

“Right,” Stiles says quickly. “No, yeah, you go…do that. I’ll just…” He shrugged his good shoulder. “I’ll be here.”

Derek disappears, yet again, into the kitchen. Stiles is left alone with a pounding heart and the feeling that he’s made a damn fool of himself. Not an entirely unfamiliar feeling, granted. But it settles into his gut like a rock, at odds with the steady, reassuring warmth of his spark still basking in Derek’s presence. He digs the heel of his palm into his sternum. It does not make either feeling go away. It does, however, make his hand sticky with half-dried blood smeared around from a variety of sources.

Suddenly, what he wants more than anything is a damn shower. He can’t actually _have_ one because of his bandaged shoulder, but maybe he can at least wipe himself down, get the worst of the grime off.

He lurches to his feet. His head immediately starts spinning, but it only lasts for a few seconds. Once he’s stabilized, he begins the laborious process of limping across the living room and down the hall to the bathroom he first tried to patch himself up in. Derek must have spent some time in here, because most of the blood has been mopped up. The grout lines between the tiles are still stained red, of course—it’ll take a few hours of hard scrubbing with a toothbrush to get _that_ out—but it doesn’t look like a crime scene anymore.

Stiles snatches a hand towel off the rack and flicks on the sink. The cold water feels good against his skin. It’s not so easy to scrub himself down one-handed, but he braces his hip against the sink’s edge and does the best he can until the dizziness creeps up on him again. Fuck, his head hurts. His _everything_ hurts.

Okay, maybe he should sit down.

Between one blink and the next, it seems like, Derek is there. He kneels down in front of Stiles, saying his name, trying to catch his eye. Probably getting blood on the knees of his jeans to match the stains on his sleeves. He should really just burn the whole outfit. They can have a bonfire, toss Stiles’ ruined clothes on there too. He just needs to remember to get the—

“Where’s my jacket?” Stiles asks, a burst of adrenaline bringing things back into focus. “My jacket, Derek, I need my jacket, it’s got the—”

“Looking for this?”

Derek pulls something small and black out of his pocket. The jump drive looks intact. The blue masking tape wrapped around the middle has a bit of blood on it, but the labeling is still legible—not that Stiles knows what it means; his clearance isn’t high enough for that—and the connector escaped the carnage.

“Your clothes are trashed,” Derek tells him. “But I went through the pockets first. This looked important.”

“So important,” Stiles says, nearly faint with relief. “Oh god, so important, thank you. I don’t even want to imagine how much trouble I would’ve been in if that had ended up in a landfill somewhere. A firing squad might’ve been involved.”

Derek gets halfway through a laugh before he seems to decide that that’s not actually funny. He stares down at the innocuous little device in his palm. His eyebrows go through a complicated series of ups and downs, lips pressed into a thin line. Eventually, he sighs.

“You’re seriously trying to tell me that you’re some kind of spy?”

“We prefer the term ‘covert operatives’,” Stiles says. “But, yeah, something like that.”

He takes the jump drive, some deeply buried knot of anxiety unraveling in his chest, and tucks it into his own jeans pocket instead. So much fuss over something so small. Whatever’s on that thing, Stiles thinks uncharitably, it damn well better be worth getting shot over or he’s going to be really annoyed.

For a moment, there’s quiet. Derek’s hand is on his knee, warm and solid, and the air is full of four years’ worth of unspoken words. Stiles is good with words, usually, but they won’t come to him now. Stiles had forgotten exactly how beautiful Derek is up close, and Derek’s hand is _right there_ for the taking, and all the things he wants to say get stuck in his throat like a traffic jam.

Before he can make his own hand close the distance between them, Derek stands. He takes up the discarded towel, wets it again, and steps in close. His other hand comes up to cup Stiles’ face, tilting it to the side. Stiles shivers before the cold cloth even makes contact.

“Derek, you don’t have to—”

“You’re a mess,” Derek says softly, “and I’m not letting you into my bed like this.”

Stiles looks up at him, stunned into uncharacteristic silence once more. Derek just drags the cloth down the column of Stiles’ neck, sloughing off another layer of dirt. He grabs the second towel off the rack, wraps it around Stiles’ shoulders, and sets about rinsing the blood out of Stiles’ hair as best he can outside of a shower. Stiles lets himself be nudged this way and that. Derek’s hands are a burning contrast to the coolness of the water and he can’t help but lean into the gentle pressure of them.

The “I’ve missed you” slips out of him without his consent, falling into the scant space between them, almost too quiet to be heard. Derek’s washing pauses for just a second, then resumes.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t care?” he asks.

Stiles reaches out now, his good hand tangling itself in the hem of Derek’s sweater like maybe, if he holds on tight enough, he won’t have to let this moment go. He leans forward to rest his damp forehead on Derek’s chest. Derek lets him.

“I think I was young and stupid,” Stiles says with a weak laugh. “Too insecure to _believe_ that you might…that _we_ could ever…”

The wet cloth slides once more over the nape of Stiles’ neck and then is thrown into the sink with a plop. Derek flips the dry towel up and pats cautiously around the tender spot on the back of his neck. When the worst of the dampness has been tousled out of Stiles’ hair, he tosses that towel aside too and gently nudges Stiles upright.

His thumb finds the stitches over Stiles’ left eye. It ghosts over them, then follows the path of a scrape across Stiles’ cheekbone, and finally alights on the swell of Stiles’ bottom lip. It lingers there, barely touching, and his eyes find Stiles’.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

Stiles’ laugh catches him by surprise, but not as much as the fond smile growing on Derek’s face. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’ve definitely heard that a few times before.”

The kiss is a careful one. Derek cradles Stiles’ face in his hands like he’s something breakable and their lips move together so softly that Stiles could’ve convinced himself it wasn’t happening if not for the golden warmth that floods his chest. If he had the leverage, Stiles would push up into the kiss, deepen it, pour every ounce of repressed longing into Derek until they both overflow with it. But Derek’s got the high ground, and he seems content to linger in this liminal space, teetering on the edge.

He doesn’t pull back when the kiss ends. Instead, he presses their foreheads together, sighing against Stiles’ lips, and says, “I’ve missed you too.”

All Stiles has to do is tilt his head to take Derek’s mouth again. He would love to say that kissing Derek is better than he imagined, but even his dreams never granted him this. He abandons his grip on Derek’s sweater to slide his hand around to the small of his back. Derek lets himself be pulled in closer, humming contentedly against Stiles’ lips. The angle is hell on their necks, though, and it’s only a few more minutes of soft kisses before Derek pulls back again.

He drags his fingers through Stiles’ hair. “So,” he says. “What now?”

Stiles leans into the touch, eyes already slipping closed. “Take me to bed?”

“I hate to break it to you, Stiles, but I don’t think you’re cleared for sex.”

Stiles snorts. “Who said anything about sex? Derek, I am so exhausted, you’re going to have to _carry me_ up the stairs. And can you imagine how many stitches I would pop if I tried to engage in any kind of strenuous activity? Rebecca would be so mad.”

“Nobody wants to make Rebecca mad,” Derek concedes. “Trust me, it’s not pretty.”

“ _You_ are, though.”

The look Derek gives him is somewhere between exasperated and embarrassed, and Stiles’ smile is a helpless, unavoidable thing.

“What? It’s not like I’m wrong!”

Derek mumbles, “Shut up.”

Then he bends down to hoist Stiles up into his arms. With biceps like his, he probably could’ve managed it just fine even without his werewolf superstrength, but the ease with which he cradles Stiles—a fully grown and not insignificantly-sized man—against his chest is enviable. A number of quips run through Stiles’ head, ranging from sarcastic to salacious, but his thoughts are already turning hazy and slow. He opts to settle into Derek’s embrace instead, turning to tuck his face into the curve of Derek’s shoulder. Derek rubs his cheek against Stiles’ hair.

The trip up the stairs only jostles Stiles’ wounded shoulder a bit, and Derek is eminently careful in depositing Stiles on the bed when they reach it. Stiles is already half-asleep when Derek starts tugging his jeans off of him, just present enough to make vague protestations in the direction of his pocket.

“Don’t worry,” Derek says. “I’ve got it.”

The jump drive is deposited on the bedside table, within Stiles’ line of sight, and he relaxes. He manages to help Derek put a pair of extremely soft sweatpants on him without aggravating his injuries and then lies back to watch Derek change out of his own bloodstained clothes. He _tries_ to watch, anyway, but even the tantalizing play of muscle in Derek’s back isn’t enough to combat how fucking tired he is now that he’s lying down. He might even doze a bit before the sinking of the mattress beside him rouses him again.

Derek is stretched out beside him, bare-chested and sleepy-eyed and unbearably beautiful. His eyes rove Stiles’ face like he’s trying to commit to memory.

“What are you thinking about?” Stiles asks.

“You can’t stay.”

It’s not a question. They both know it’s the truth. The jump drive waits for him, full of secrets he’ll never get to know, and the Director will have more orders for him as soon as he gets back to Langley. Stiles hasn’t stayed in one place for more than a month in the last four years. It’s never bothered him as much as it does in this moment.

“I can stay for the night.”

“And in the morning?”

“In the morning, I follow a very complicated set of protocols to contact my handler,” Stiles tells him. “And then I go back.”

Derek’s hand finds his, tangling their fingers together. “You’ll disappear again.”

Throat tight and eyes stinging, Stiles shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No, I’m not going to—”

He drags their joined hands up between them, pressing the back of Derek’s hand against his own chest, right over the warmth of his spark. It flares at the touch, radiating that golden glow of _safesafesafe,_ and Stiles never wants to let that feeling go.

“I’ll have to go tomorrow,” he says, “but I’ll come back. I swear, Derek, I’m going to come back to you, one way or another. I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid enough to let you go again.”

Derek’s eyes fall to Stiles’ chest. Listening to his heartbeat, maybe, to see if he believes what he’s saying. After a moment, Derek pulls his hand out of Stiles’ to press his palm flat against Stiles’ bare skin instead, over his heart.

“You know, I’ve never really understood how this whole spark thing works,” he says.

“Me neither,” Stiles admits. “But I don’t care. Not as long as it keeps leading me back to you.”

Derek kisses him, soft and sweet, like a promise. As Derek pulls him close and settles in to sleep, Stiles makes a promise to himself. Whatever he needs to do to make his words truth, he’ll do it. His contract didn’t exactly have an exit date on it, but damn it, Stiles will fight the whole US government if that’s what it takes to get out and have the chance at a _life_ again.

He walked away from Derek once, not realizing what he was leaving behind. Now, with Derek’s warmth all around him, the scratch of stubble against his nape, a strong arm snug around his waist, he _knows._ And he knows it’s worth fighting to keep.

**Author's Note:**

> [masterpost with art rebloggable on tumblr!](https://twistedamusement.tumblr.com/post/633885879656742912/moodboard-for-the-sterek-reverse-quickie-hitman)


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